John Michael Kosterlitz, one of the scientists that has been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, poses for a photo at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, Tuesday Oct. 4, 2016. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has cited David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz for “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.” (Roni Rekomaa/Lehtikuva via AP)

Friday 9th December Nobel Laureate in Physics, Professor J. Michael Kosterlitz visited Kista Science City. J. Michael Kosterlitz joined in a Q&A with young high school students from the Stockholm Science and Innovation School and participated in a roundtable talk with leading professors from around the world and representatives from Ericsson.

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Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1943, Kosterlitz earned his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1969. After an appointment as a postdoctoral researcher at Torino University in Italy, he became a research fellow at Birmingham University in 1970 before coming to Brown in 1982. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and received the Maxwell Medal from the U.K. Institute of Physics in 1980. In 2000 he was awarded the Lars Onsager Prize by the American Physical Society. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007.

“At the moment I feel like I’m in some alternate universe, where reality has taken a long vacation,” he said. “But everything seems to be real, so I guess I will have to assume that it is and proceed accordingly.”

He added that the work for which the prize was awarded was his first foray into condensed matter physics, and he was surprised with the impact it has had in the world of physics.

“At the time it was a purely theoretical exercise,” he said. “I had a lot of fun when I did it. I guess the impact has been quite large.”